Saturdays in the Park
by Tigerdust
Summary: It's Daphne Marie Fabray's first birthday and Quinn has planned a party in the park, helped by her fellow gleeks. But not even one party can go by without the boy drama. Done for the lj haiti auction and rated slightly higher for brief swearing.
1. Chapter 1

It was ten o' clock in the morning with just a hint of a breeze and bold sunshine peeking out from the clouds. It was a perfect day at the park, at least as perfect as spring days ever got in Lima with rising Ohio humidity. The park was unusually quiet for a Saturday, but it was pretty obvious why. It was the first birthday of Quinn Fabray's daughter.

Little Daphne Marie Fabray was adorable. She was a squishy little vision in yellow and pink, bouncing up and down as Kurt made cooing sounds next to her, reaching in for tiny grabbing fingers that smelled like coconut sunscreen. The little checkered pink dress had been a gift from Finn's mom, who had been at the hospital with Finn as he had paced like a nervous father, and the park had been a gift from her parents.

"You don't have to do that Kurt."

Kurt Hummel looked up at Quinn, who had taken the day off of her weekend stocking job to lug a big case of soda into a cooler near a park bench that was covered with a festive cream tablecloth featuring duckies with umbrellas. "But I like to. She's so cute."

Quinn chuckled as she set down the box and ripped the side out so she could start laying the sodas into the ice, water, and salt mixture that would keep them cold. She had gotten the idea from an episode of Mythbusters that she had caught after Ms. Pillsbury had gushed about them finding a way to keep soda cooler for a longer period of time. "And she's quite fond of you, Uncle Kurt."

Kurt put one hand on his hip, the other put to good use tickling Daphne in the stroller. "You know, I used to think I was too young to be an uncle."

Mercedes called from the short ladder she was standing on near a tree, where she was hanging the last of the pink Chinese lanterns that were blowing softly in the breeze all around the picnic tables. "Well, you thought you were too old to hang decorations."

Kurt faked an aghast stare. "Daphne needed me!"

Quinn rolled her eyes as Mercedes stepped down off the ladder, folding it up to take it back to her dad's van. "Please, you just didn't want to get up on a ladder in those tight blue pants of yours."

Kurt snapped his index finger in her general direction. "You're just jealous."

Quinn folded her arms. "Do I have to separate you two?"

As if on cue, Mercedes pointed in Kurt's direction as he continued to wag his finger. "She started it!" "He started it!"

Quinn shook her head, heading over to check on her little one. Daphne squealed with delight when mom appeared out of nowhere. "What do you think Daphne? Think I should have chosen better role models?"

Kurt shook his head. "At least the dress isn't dirty yet."

Quinn sat down, putting Daphne in her lap. "Can't expect it to last the day. Between the cake and one of the boys deciding they want to take her on the swings, I don't think her first party dress is going to stand much fighting form."

Mercedes fished into a bag near the cooler, grabbing cups to put on the table. "I really did think you were gonna kill Finn and Rachel for that."

Quinn shrugged. "Their hearts were in the right place. And Ms. Hudson was always telling me horror stories about mud pies and bath time messes and well, I guess I just had to desensitize myself."

Kurt took the plates Mercedes was handing to him with the pastel florals on the rim. "Dad says I was never a dirty child. I used to wrinkle my nose at the very idea of mud pies."

Mercedes and Quinn nodded together. "We can imagine."

"Imagine what?" Brittany walked up, holding a long, covered platter in her arms.

"Kurt as a kid." Mercedes responded as she moved the plates so that Brittany could slide the long platter onto the main food table.

Quinn moved around the table so that Daphne could give Brittany a hug. Brittany lit up as she accepted the baby's hug and then Quinn's thanks with a "happy to do it" sort of smile.

"Happy Birthday, little Daphne!"

Quinn looked over at the covered platter with a thrill of discovery. "Can we see it?"

Brittany nodded. "I hoped you would want to. I spent all this morning finishing it."

Quinn gasped as Brittany lifted the lid for the reveal of the vanilla cake with lavender icing, spread out with flower sprinkles that spelled out Happy Birthday, Daphne! The exclamation mark was even in the shape of a one.

"It's perfect!" Kurt chimed in.

Brittany was pleased. "Thanks. Its nana's recipe. My birthday gift to you. Its the tradition for the first year girls of our family."

Kurt gasped. "I feel like I'm gonna cry."

"Don't let your make-up run, Hummel."

Puck strolled up in his football jersey with Santana around one arm carrying a lavender bag and a pinata of Dora the Explorer while Puck himself toted a big bag of charcoal. Matt and Mike weren't far behind with a box of burgers and two wrapped presents. They were doing rock paper scissors over who was going to use the tongs. It looked like Matt was about to grab the tongs and play sword fight with Mike.

Quinn nodded in the group's direction. "Thanks for bringing the burgers."

Matt pointed over to the grill with his shoulder. "Welcome. We'll just head over in that direction. I'll come say hey once me and Mike got the charcoal going hot."

Mercedes pursed her lips as Santana found herself grabbing brightly colored boxes handed to her. "You guys do know how to barbecue right? My daddy was barbecuing champion three years in a row for our church at the family council picnic." Kurt added in a "you go, girl" for good measure.

Puck snorted through his nose, dropping the charcoal so that he could round up the gifts. "Please, these my boys. They got it."

Brittany giggled. "They're sword fighting. But, you know, with tongs and spatulas."

Noah rolled his eyes. Setting the gifts and piñata into Santana's arms again, he picked up the bag of charcoal and headed to the grill. "Be cool guys! Be cool!"

Quinn put Daphne back in the carrier and put the shade down as the sun extended itself beyond the cloud which had blocked a good portion of the sun's rays. Noah had woken her up at seven to have birthday pancakes this morning and she had been fiercely setting down ground rules for the day ever since. He admired the dedication to her daughter but sometimes she thought he was trying too hard to not be his deadbeat dad. Way too hard.

"Hey Q, Little D. Great day for a party in the park." Santana arranged the boxes and bag alongside the empty seats on the opposite side of the bench.

Quinn nodded. "Thanks for coming. How are things going with the Cheerios this year?"

Santana shook her head. "Not the same without you. There's the little blond upstart named Megan that's trying to make herself all big and bad and popular...it's actually kind of fierce, come to think of it." Noticing the look in Quinn's eyes, Santana backtracked. "But I laid down the law. Nobody's ever gonna fill your shoes while I'm around, Q."

Quinn shook her head. "You don't have to do that."

Santana folded her arms. "Its as much for me as for you. How long have the sodas been in the ice? Is that salt?"

Quinn nodded as she looked down into the tub. "Yep. Ms. P was talking about that episode of Myth busters a few days ago."

Brittany piped in. "Dad loves that show!"

Kurt walked over to where Santana was now sitting. "Wanna hang up the piñata?"

"Go ahead." Santana finished the phrase off with a shrug.

"Okay..." Kurt took the end of Dora's head, leaving it to dangle off the end of the string.

Mercedes grabbed a lower portion of the string. "C'mon. I'll help you put it up. Wouldn't want to get a split in those tight pants of yours."

Rachel and Finn walked up, a few gifts between them. "We're not late, are we?"

Quinn stood up, dusting herself off as a natural reaction to Finn walking towards her. "Not at all. Welcome to the party!"

Finn nodded, Rachel clinging to his arm. "Looks really good, guys."

Kurt and Mercedes called from the swinging Dora piñata. "Thanks!"

Rachel began to slide her gifts alongside the table with the rest. "Sorry we're so late. We had to go to Mr. Schue's house to get his presents. He wanted to come..."

Quinn nodded. "No, I understand. We talked about, said it wouldn't be right if he showed up since I'm still technically a student for another half a year. Its okay."

Mercedes walked over to the cooler to test the sodas. "Ms. P made some bomb yellow cupcakes though."

Rachel nodded in agreement. "Indeed....are those guys gonna be...."

Finn stepped back a bit when he saw the flame jump up from the grill. "Yeah, its just the grill getting warmed up. Maybe I should go over after I say high to..."

Quinn met his eyes. Finn was still trying to not say "my daughter."

Regardless of what he was trying not to say, he leaned down to look at the little girl. "Hey there, stranger. You being good for mom?"

Kurt appeared over Finn's shoulder. "She's been a perfect angel."

"I'm gonna go check on your burgers, kiddo. Be back in a second."

Finn sauntered toward the grill without addressing Kurt, trying to keep the little lump in his throat from coming too far north.

Rachel broke the silence with the introduction of a camera or three spilling onto the table. "I, um, I know you've got a really ridiculously nice camera, but our family likes the candid shot so I bought a couple of disposables..."

Quinn surprised Rachel with a hug. "Thanks for coming. And bringing Finn."

Rachel smiled as Quinn pulls away. "He misses Noah. He doesn't even try to deny it anymore."

Mercedes picked up a disposable camera and started winding it up. "These little things will be great for taking pictures of the cake before we cut into it."

Kurt nodded in return. "Shame we have to. It fits Daphne's personality to a tee."

Quinn nodded along in agreement. Even just one years old, she saw a lot of herself in her daughter. Since cheer leading time had become free time, Quinn had found a renewed love for plants and gardening and was thinking of getting a botany degree someday and opening up a nursery. You could see that interest in Daphne's eyes anytime dandelion seeds blew by at the park or a duck waddled. Pretty soon, she'd be crawling around after the ducklings and Quinn was going to have to get really protective so she wouldn't get bit.

Noah held the burgers aloft as he reentered the picnic area. "First round's on the house. How's my princess doing?"

Kurt piped in on cue. "Fine as always."

Noah made a throat in his noise. "Not you, Hummel."

Brittany grabbed for another little camera on the table. "Before we dig in, we should do candle lighting."

Rachel opened her bag, rummaging around. "Right, we did get the candles you wanted. Had to go to three stores to find them."

"Overachieve much?"

Quinn shot Santana a look. "You didn't have to go to all that trouble. We didn't need singing candles."

Rachel pointed to the guy jogging over with Mike and Matt. "Finn's idea."

Noah set down the burgers. "Whatever. Lets just light those suckers up so that we can deal with food and then the piñata."

Finn spoke while he reached into the cooler for a soda. "Quinn, want to do pictures later by the swing set too? And the turtle?"

Quinn nodded. "Plenty of time. Dad's got the park for us today, booked a private event."

"Cool."

Noah's eyes lit up as he thought about the work he had put into the game. "She's gonna love the trinkets in the piñata."

Quinn sighed, not wanting this again during the birthday. They were worse than divorced parents. "We'll decide after candles and cake, boys."

Kurt smiled. "I love birthday cake; absolutely no calories. Can I get an amen?"

Several fingers went up in the air. "A-men!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Get back here! These are designer pants!"

Quinn watched with mild amusement as Kurt was tearing down the field after Mike, whom had taken to throwing water balloons. Quinn was counting as the colors few all around the park. It wasn't late enough in the day to call it late, but she knew Daphne. She'd be getting tired soon and it was time to start packing up. The party could continue, parties for one year olds aren't usually about kids anyways, back in the yard of one of the houses. They always seemed to.

Finn was over at the turtle with Daphne, taking pictures and grinning like a fool. Rachel, Mercedes, and Brittany were hovering around the swing set and the slides and such. Santana had run back to Puck's car. She had a super soaker tucked away in there somewhere.

As for Puck, Quinn had thought that he was still raking charcoal coals. But, true to form, he was surprising her.

"Hey."

His voice was soft, but not soft enough to keep from interrupting her thoughts on what it would be like when Daphne saw her first firefly, maybe even caught it, wouldn't be long now until there would be fireflies in mason jars.

"So, you gonna let him pretend that this is his kid's party?"

Quinn rolled her eyes as Puck reminded her, yet again, that she was stuck in the middle. Daphne, thank God, never was. And she never would be hopefully. No, it was just Quinn, the blond bargaining chip.

"_It's my party and I'll cry if I want to_

_Cry if I want to, cry if I want to_

_You would cry too if it happened to you..._"

Puck's eyebrow crooked. "Well, aren't you the picture of civility, Quinn."

"Yeah, we'll you're acting like a girl. Why don't you just tell him you want to spend time with...your daughter?"

Puck hissed under his breath. "Because you never wanted her to be my daughter."

Quinn didn't want to deal with a hysterical Puck, but they always seemed to bring that out in each other. "Why do you want to do this here and now? Is it the piñata thing? We'll go and break the damn piñata, then."

Puck turned, standing in Quinn's way. "That's not it. Its the order of everything, how screwed up everything is. Look, its great that you've got this new independent life going on. I can appreciate that. But Finn sees my kid more than me! Hell, Rachel sees my kid more than me!"

Quinn just licked her lips. "I can't deal with this right now, no matter how untrue that is."

"No. We deal with this now. You set these rules, you make these regulations...I just, damn girl! Tell me what you want!"

"I don't know. Okay Noah? I don't know. There are some days where I wake up and pray its all a dream. There are some days at work where it would have been so much easier to just take your offer and get a house together. But, in spite of that, I'm happy. I'm not a single parent, not the way all the guys in Glee dote on Daphne. I would give you something to understand if I knew myself!"

Puck watched Quinn begin to storm away. "Wait. Lets not do this again...."

Quinn was holding back the tears but keeping her voice down. They were getting closer to end the ball diamond right before the playground. "Why? Because you want me to remind you that being with Santana is bad idea or you want to make me feel guilty about raising Daphne on my own or still having feelings for Finn because I always did? Why Puck? Why won't you let us move on and be happy?"

Puck reached up, slipping his fingers through his mohawk. "I don't know, okay? I just....I just...

_My you have the finest horse_

_I have ever seen_

_Standing sixteen one or two_

_Eyes wild and green_

_You ride the horse so well_

_Hands light to the touch_

_I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to_

_Ride on-See you_

_I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to_

_Ride on-See you_

_I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to_

_When you ride into the night_

_Leaving no trace behind_

_Rake you claws along my gut_

_One last time_

_When I turn to face an empty space where you used to lie_

_A teardrop lights up the night_

_And fire in your eyes_

_Ride on-See you_

_I could never go with you_

_Whoa! Whoa!_

_I could never go with you _

_No matter how I wanted to...._

I guess that's it, Quinn. You're just, my chance...its all slipping away."

Quinn shook her head. "Daphne's happiness is not your chance, its hers. And if she asks...well, I'll only lie if she asks sooner than later. I don't want to be ashamed of what I do or who I am anymore. And I want to find somebody that's not just doing it because its theirs. This isn't the Maury Show, Noah. We both have to learn how to grow apart before it would ever work together."

Noah couldn't hide how upset he was. It flashed in his eyes and his cheeks. "Will it ever work then?"

Quinn shrugged. "I don't know. Just make sure there are pictures from her first birthday with you. I know you like the slide, maybe catch some pictures with her on the way down."

"But what about a family photo?"

Quinn observed the park as the sun exterminated the last of the shadows at midday. "They're all here, Puck; we'll do one before we leave."

Puck walked away, past the pitchers mound with his head shaking. He was headed back towards the table and just over fourth eaten cake. Quinn hoped that he wasn't leaving yet. It just wouldn't be fair.

"Hey Quinn! Get over here!"

Finn jovially stuck his tongue out for a shot with Daphne and then scooped her up by his little hands. She was learning to hang off his long arm and swing. She made little spurting noises of Glee when she did it.

"She need a change?"

Finn grinned madly. "Nah. You're just missing all the fun. Picture?"

Quinn shook her head. "There's enough of me."

Finn pointed at the camera Rachel was holding. "Nonsense. Rachel will be Tyra and I can be Nigel. Mercedes can be Miss Jay and Kurt will be the other guy. Come on, it'll be fun."

Quinn rolled her eyes, the sadness from her conversation with Noah dissipating. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

Rachel shook her head, trying to work the tiny viewfinder. "I assure you, he won't. It's a team effort."

After about ten shots, it was clear that Daphne was getting fussy and needed a bit less group attention and a bit more mommy time. Finn tagged along since she had grabbed at his sleeve every time he had gone to get another soda. Daphne was in full swing mode as she was half-cradled, half-swung between Finn and Quinn.

"What was that thing with Puck?"

"Same old song and dance, but nothing I can't handle."

Finn winced a little when sun got in his eyes. He starts to head toward the shade of a nearby tree, an orange Frisbee sailing overhead that somebody had pulled out of their car. "Wish you didn't have to."

"Either way, I only make someone miserable. If it was your kid, you'd still be pining over Rachel instead of being with her. I don't really want someone to look after me again Finn."

"Yeah, I know."

Quinn did her best to hit the nail on the head. "And I think we're both happier too."

Finn gave a half-hearted smile. "We had some good times, but you're right. I mean, with Rachel, I can sing Nights in White Satin at the top of my lungs and not be embarrassed. With you, I was always afraid that you'd dump me if I showed up with pizza sauce on my sleeve or something."

Daphne settled in her mom's lap for a nap when they rested under the tree. "I might have. But, we're both a lot different now."

Finn nodded solemnly, as he stood tall and leaned against the tree. "We'd have never made it this far either."

"I don't think it matters, Finn. You and Puck aren't better, just different from each other. But you'll both be great fathers when the time is right."

Finn thrust his hands into his pockets, watching Rachel snatch the squirt gun that Mercedes had wrestled from Santana. "I just wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing, you know? Whatever you want."

Quinn batted her eyelashes. "Finn, you can't always get what you want."

Author's Note: Songs are owned by Celtic Thunder- "Ride On" and Lesley Gore- "It's My Party". Done for the livejournal help_haiti auction winner who requested a Puck/Quinn pairing where it wasn't because she was the hottest girl on the planet. Hope I fulfilled your request!


End file.
